MATHETΩN

“But, semantics aside, the general practice of modern English translators of suppressing the ‘and’ when it is attached to a verb has the effect of changing the tempo, rhythm, and construction of events in biblical narrative. Let me illustrate by quoting a narrative sequence in Genesis 24 first in my own version, which reproduces every ‘and’ and every element of parataxis, and then in the version of the Revised English Bible. The Revised English Bible is in general one of the most compulsive repackagers of biblical language, though in this instance the reordering of the Hebrew is relatively minor: Its rendering of these sentences is roughly interchangeable with any of the other modern versions … . I begin in the middle of the verse 16, where Rebekah becomes the subject of a series of actions.

“

And she came down to the spring and filled her jug and came back up. And the servant ran toward her and said, “Pray, let me sip a bit of water from your jug.” And she said, “Drink, my lord,” and she hurried and tipped down her jug on one hand and let him drink. And she let him drink his fill and said, “For your camels, too, I shall draw water until they drink their fill.” And she hurried and emptied her jug into the trough, and she ran again to the well to draw water and drew water for all his camels.

“And this is how the Revised English Bible, in keeping with the prevailing assumptions of the most recent translations, renders these verses in what is presumed to be sensible modern English:

“

She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came up again. Abraham’s servant hurried to meet her and said, “Will you give me a little water from your jar?” “Please drink, sir,” she answered, and at once lowered her jar on her hand to let him drink. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I shall draw water also for your camels until they have had enough.” She quickly emptied her jar into the water trough, and then hurrying again to the well she drew water and watered all the camels.

“There is, as one would expect, some modification of biblical parataxis, though it is not so extreme here as elsewhere in the Revised English Bible: ‘And she let him drink his fill’ is converted into an introductory adverbial clause, ‘When she had finished giving him a drink’ …; ‘and she hurried’ is compressed into ‘quickly’; ‘and she ran again’ becomes the participial hurrying again’. (Moves of this sort, it should be said, push translation to the verge of paraphrase — recasting and interpreting the original instead of representing it.) The most striking divergence between these two versions is that mine has fifteen ‘and’s, corresponding precisely to fifteen occurrences of the particle waw in the Hebrew, whereas the Revised English Bible manages with just five. What difference does this make? To begin with, it should be observed that the waw, whatever is claimed about its linguistic functions, is by no means an inaudible element in the phonetics of the Hebrew text: we must keep constantly in mind that these narratives were composed to be heard, not merely to be decoded by a reader’s eye. The reiterated ‘and’, then, plays an important role in creating the rhythm of the story … [while] the elimination of the ‘and’ in the Revised English Bible and all its modern cousins produces — certainly to my ear — an abrupt, awkward effect in the sound pattern of the language … .

“More is at stake here than pleasing sounds, for the heroine of the repeated actions is in fact subtly but significantly reduced in all the rhythmically-deficient versions. She of course performs roughly the same acts in the different versions — politely offering water to the stranger, lowering her jug so that he can drink, rapidly going back and forth to the spring to bring water for the camels. But in the compressions, syntactical reorderings, and stop-and-start movements of the modernizing version, the encounter at the well and Rebekah’s actions are made to seem rather matter-of-fact … to obscure what the Hebrew highlights, which is that she is doing something quite extraordinary. Rebekah at the well presents one of the rare biblical instances of the performance of an act of ‘Homeric’ heroism. The servant begins by asking modestly to ‘sip a bit of water’, as though all he wanted were to wet his lips. But we need to remember, as the ancient audience surely did, that a camel after a long desert journey can drink as much as twenty-five gallons of water, and there are ten camels here whom Rebekah offers to water ‘until they drink their fill’. The chain of verbs tightly linked by all the ‘and’s does an admirable job in conveying the sense of the young woman’s hurling herself with prodigious speed into the sequence of required actions. Even her dialog is scarcely a pause in the narrative momentum, but is integrated syntactically and rhythmically into the chain: ‘And she said, “Drink, my lord,” and she hurried and tipped down her jug. … And she hurried and emptied her jug into the trough, and she ran again to the well to draw water and drew water for all his camels.’ The parallel syntax and the barrage of ‘and’s, far from being the reflex of a ‘primitive’ language, are as artfully effective in furthering the ends of the narrative as any device one could find in a sophisticated modern novelist.”

– Robert Alter

“Broadly speaking, one may say that in the case of the modern revisions, the problem is a shaky sense of English and in the case of the King James Version, a shaky sense of Hebrew.”

– Robert Alter

(He goes on to show that the modern versions’ sense of Hebrew is generally worse than the KJV’s.) I like the quotation because it recognizes how bad is the modern translations’ English!

The anti-Semitism that for over a century now has passed as Biblical scholarship has taken a blow. After a year of study, researchers have been forced to admit that a pottery shard and its inscription are very ancient — and that they are material proof the Hebrews were capable of written language hundreds of years before the scholarship has generally allowed. The shard comprises fragments of text that seem to be paraphrases of Isaiah, psalms, and others and of which the language, while unique, is inarguably Hebrew.

More can be read here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/…ertextsuggests

The modern Biblical scholarship, which began in earnest in German “new schools” in the nineteenth century, has generally maintained that the Hebrews were much inferior and dilatory imitators of surrounding cultures and that their scriptures were late pastiches of oral myth made to look like early history and prophecy.

I want altogether to stop saying terms such as “biblical”. I do not believe in a Holy Bible. The book — or really the concept of the book — is for Christian hierarchs a cunningly-used talisman and tabu. It is not a true thing.

What I believe to be true is that there is a Word of God who is Jesus.

When Jesus was alive on earth, the words he said were words of God. Before, in heaven — and now from heaven — he by his Spirit said — and says — words of God.

These latter words of course are said in people’s spirits. But some of them are written down. The ones that are written down are true scriptures. Paul Envoy said: “Every writing that is divinely inspired is also useful for teaching, for argument, for correction, for education in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.” Himself in these ways used sayings of Jesus; and some passages of Hebrew scriptures, for which he always argued relevance and took care to say the Spirit was speaking the meaning he saw in them; and a few ancient poems of the Hellenes.

And now I will sum up my thinking:

“Biblical” is an Evangelicalist construction used as a weapon or tool; “scriptural” can refer to any writings a religion calls scriptures, but true scriptures are written words the Spirit of Jesus uses to tell me some true words of God.

And, of neccesity and as my own Teacher, oftener he tells me true words of God that are not written anywhere but my heart.

And, above all, Jesus personally is the Word, and the Truth.

I would like therefore to speak of an idea’s or word’s or action’s being of Jesus; or of his Holy Spirit, of his Kingdom; or of simply right and truth.

Paul was a middle-upper-class Hebrew — educated, of affluent and influential stock — writing to middle-upper-class Hellenes — educated and very affluent and influential. The Assemblings he fathered were in a few Hellenistic metropoles in Turkey and thereabout, of course, and were composed of statesmen, merchants, ex-clergy, and so on. He writes just as one would expect, then. He attempts to introduce Corinth to some of the better Hebrew mores, but with a liberal spirit. Indeed, he is always liberal toward the Hellenic culture — he writes as a sort of respectful, amiable diplomat.

I suppose what I want to say is that: Jesus contended with the powerful clergy, and so did Paul (per the Acts); but Jesus passed his time with the outcast, while we have no such record of Paul. (And Jesus eventually clashed with the civil powers — which we know Paul did as well, when he volunteered to enter the den of Caesar, but of his showdown we have no record.)

If instead of writing parentheticals to genteel houseslaves, Paul had written a whole epistle to the Empire’s slave-prostitutes, what would he have written?

“Copy me as I copy the Christ” seems the only answer we can read in him. “You have but one Teacher,” said Jesus.

“What is common sense has become for you like the words of a book that is forbidden: which people might bring to someone educated and say, ‘Read this, please,’ and he says, ‘I cannot; it is forbidden’: and they bring it to someone uneducated and say, ‘Read this, please,’ and he says, ‘But I am uneducated’.”

– Isaiah Prophet

Hebrew slang and wordplay can have as opaque an etymology as in any other language, but, according to one ancient scholarship, “sons of Belial” may mean “sons of shit”.

“Oh that you would rend the skies, that you would come down so that the mountains flowed at your presence — the way an iron-melting fire works or the way fire causes water to boil — and make your name known to your enemies so that the nations tremble at your presence! As [long ago] when you did terrifying things that we expected not, when you came down and the mountains flowed at your presence.

“For since the beginning of the world mankind has not heard or perceived or seen, O God, what you have prepared for those who wait for you. You meet those who rejoice and work righteousness, those who remember you in your ways — see, you are wroth, for we have sinned — but in those is continuance and we shall be saved.

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. And there are none who call your name, who stir up themselves to take hold of you: for you have hid your face from us and have destroyed us because of our iniquities.

“But now, O Lord: You are our father; we are clay and you are our potter; we all are the works of your hands! Be not wroth very fiercely, O Lord, nor remember our iniquities forever: See, we beseech you, that we are all your people!

“Your holy cities are a wilderness, Zion a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful House, where our fathers praised you, is burned up with fire. And all our pleasant things are laid waste.

“Will you restrain yourself in spite of these things, O Lord? Will you stay silent and [continue to] afflict us very fiercely?”

Lately, to me the ancient Hebrew seers seem to have been preoccupied with modern America. Examples are too numerous — although some of you will remember my recent jubilance to discover Ezekiel say that for Capitalism Yahweh burnt Sodom and Gommorah:

“Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”

And today another gem: Isaiah pronouncing a prophetic curse upon Fundamentalists:

“But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little and there a little: that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken and snared and taken.”

Lord, Lord, time gone you save me—now I cry by night and day.
Lord, Lord, time gone you save me—now I cry by night and day.
Put my prayers where you can see them.
When I cry, turn your eyes this way.

Lord, my soul is full of troubles, and I think I goin die.
Lord, my soul is full of troubles, and I think I goin die.
You can find me in the graveyard
wanderin where the murdered lie.

It you, Lord, Lord, that put me into darkness, into hell.
It you, Lord, Lord, that put me into darkness, into hell.
Lord, you so angry with me—
your rage it swirl and swell.

You drive my neighbors from me, and they gone so far away.
You drive my neighbors from me, and they gone so far away.
They say that I be damned, Lord—
and I ain’t got a word to say.

My eyes, they mourn and cry, Lord—and I call and call on you.
My eyes, they mourn and cry, Lord—and I call and call on you.
My hands, they reach to heaven,
and I call and call on you.

Can you show the dead a wonder—can you make him rise and sing?
Can you show the dead a wonder—can you make him rise and sing?
With your lovin and your kindness—
can you make the graveyard sing?

You do wonders and you do right, Lord. They be seen in the dead and
dark?
You do wonders, you do right, Lord. They be seen in the dead and
dark?
Can a land that remember nothin
know the Lord got a faithful heart?

It you, Lord, Lord, I callin—and this mornin, goin make you stay.
It you, Lord, Lord, I callin—and this mornin, goin make you stay
and answer why you hidin
once you threw my soul away.

You know I been afflicted—when a child, I wish to die.
You know I been afflicted—when a child, I wish to die.
Your rage it like to drown me—
Lord, it you who terrify.

Your terror it come round me, and I think I goin drown.
Your terror it come round me, and I think I goin drown.
There ain’t nobody love me,
and I ain’t got a friend around.

—Pace King David